Los Angeles daily herald., 1887-06-20
MOUNT SHASTA
Believed to be the Wigwam oi
the Great Spirit.

Inc natives IN tne neiBhpoihoou VI
Mount Shasta, the highest mountain in
California, say that the Great Spirit
made this mountain first of all. Boring
a hole in the sky, using large stone as
an auger, he pushed down snow and ice
until they had reached the desired
height; then he stepped from the
cloud down to the great icy pile, and
from it to the earth, where he planted
the first trees by merely putting his fin
ger into the soil here and there. The
sun began to melt the snow, the snow
produced water the water ran down the
sides of the mountains, refreshed the
trees and made rivers. The Creator
gathered the leaves that fell from the
trees, blew upon them aud they became
birds. He took a stick and broke it into
pieces; of the small end he made fishes;
and of the middle of the stick he made
animals-the grizzly bear excepted,
which he formed from the big end of the
stick, appointing him to be master over
all the others. Indeed, this animal was
then SO large. strong and cunning, that
the Creator somewhat feared him, and
followed out Mount Shasta as a wigwam
for himself, where he might reside while
on earth. in the most perfect security
and comfort. So the smoke was soon
to be seen curling up from the mountain
where the Great Spirit and his family
lived, and still live, though their hearth
fire is alight no longer, now that the
white man is in the land. This was
thousands of SHOWS ago, and there came
after this late and severe spring time,
in which memorable storm blew up
from the seas. shaking the huge lodge to
its base. The Great Spirit commanded
his daughter, little more than an infant,
to 90 up aud bid the wind be still, eau
tioning her at the same time. in his
fatherly way, not to put her head out
into the blast, but only to thrust out
her little red arm and make
a sign before she delivered
her message. The eager child
hastened up to the hole in the roof, did
as she was told, and then turned to de.
scend; but the Eve was too strong in her
to leave without look at the forbidden
world outside and the rivers and trees,
at the far ocean and the great waves
that the storm had made as hoary as the
forests when the snow is on the frs.
She stopped, she put out her head to
look; instantly the storm took her by
the long hair, and blew her down to the
earth, down the mountain side, over the
smooth ice and soft snow, down to the
land of the grizzly bears.
Now the grizzly bears were somewhat
different then from what they are at
present. In appearance they were much
the same it is true; but they walked
then on their hind legs like men, and
talked and carried clubs, using the fore
limbs as men use their arms.
There was family of these grizzlies
living at the foot of the mountain, at
the place where the child vas blown to.
The father was returning from the hunt
with his club on his shoulder and
young elk in his hand, when he saw the
little shivering wait lying on the snow
with her hair all tangled about her.
The old grizzly, plying and wondering
at the strange forlorn creature, lifted it
up, and carried it in TO his wife to see
see what shonld be done. She, too, was
pisiful, and she fed it from her own
breast, bringing it up quietly as one of
her family So the girl grew up. and
the eldest son of the old grizzly married
her, and their off spring was neither
grizzly nor Great Spirit, but man. Very
proud indeed were the whole grizzly
nation of the new race. and uniting their
strength from all parts of the country,
they built their young mother and her
family a mountain wigwam near that of
the Great Spirit; and this structure OF
theirs is now known as little Mount
Shasta. Many years passed away, and
at last the old grandmother grizzly be-
came very feeble and felt that she must
soon die. She knew that the little girl
she had adopted was the daughter of
the Great Spirit, and her conscience
troubled her that she never let him
know anything of the facts of his child.
So she called all of the grizzlies
together to the new lodge, and sent her
eldest grandson up on a cloud to the
summit of Mount Shasta to tell the
father that his daughter still lived.
When the Great Spirit heard that, he
was so glad that he Immediately ran
down the mountain, on the south side,
toward where he had been told his
daughter was; and such was the swift
ness of his pace, that the snow was
melted here aud there along his course,
as it remains to this day. The grizzlies
had prepared him an honorable recep.
tion, and as he approached his daughters
home, he found them standing in thous.
ands in two files, on either side of the
door, with their clubs under their arms.
He had not pictured his daughter as
aught but the little child he had loved
so long ago; but when he found that she
was mother, and that she had been
BETRAYED into the creation of new race,
his anger overcame him; he scowled so
terribly on the poor old grandmother
Grizzly that she died ON the spot. AT
this all the bears set mp fearful howl,
but the exasperated father, taking his
lost darling on his shoulders, turned to
the armed host, and in his fury cursed
them. Peace! he said. Be silent for.
ever! Let no articulate word ever again
pass your lips, neither stand any more
upright, but use your hands as feet, and
look downward until l come again!
Then he drove them all out; he drove
out also the new race of men, shut the
door of Little Mount Shasta, and passed
away to his mountain, carrying his
daughter; and her or him no eye has
since seen. The grizzlies never spoke
again; nor stood up; save indeed when
fighting for their life, when the Great
Spirit permits them to stand as in old
time, and to use their fists like men. No
Indian tracing his descent from the
spirit mother and the grizzly, as here
described, will kill grizzly bear; and it
by an evil chance grizzly kill man in
any place, that spot becomes memorable,
and everyone that passes casts o stone